


drowning my thoughts out with the sounds

by Randomosities



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Heartbreak, M/M, dean leaves wwe, implied relationship end, shield breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 16:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomosities/pseuds/Randomosities
Summary: Beneath all of the gold and the cocky attitude, he was just a kid from the streets, fighting to survive in a world that had always rejected him. Yet somehow along the way, he’d been gifted with these two men who loved him regardless of the stupid things he said and did, who believed in him more than he himself ever could, who promised to stand by his side in every impossible battle.





	drowning my thoughts out with the sounds

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be triumphant but it ended up angsty. Oops.
> 
> Inspired by the Shield's Last Chapter thing in April.
> 
> Enjoy!

There was a fire bright in his eyes and a matching fire alight in his chest.

He’d never considered himself worthy of the things, the _people _that he’d earned; even though he’d worked his ass off for them, sweat and blood and tears and broken bones and bruises and scrapes and tears of a different kind, he still didn’t feel like he deserved the gold he’d held, the love and the warmth in his boys’ eyes when they looked at him.

Even though there would never truly be an end, this felt like the end. Even though their lives, their passions, their souls were woven together so tightly, so intimately that they were impossible to extricate; it felt like they’d slipped out of Dean’s fingers, planted tauntingly just out of reach, where his failed attempts at bringing them back clutched tightly in a frantic grip brought nothing but the deadening _whoosh_ of air between his outstretched fingers.

Beneath all of the gold and the cocky attitude, he was just a kid from the streets, fighting to survive in a world that had always rejected him. Yet somehow along the way, he’d been gifted with these two men who loved him regardless of the stupid things he said and did, who believed in him more than he himself ever could, who promised to stand by his side in every impossible battle.

He was leaving because of them.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to stay. He would give anything—all the gold he’d accumulated, all the fame that had found him, the money that was barely enough to get by on—to stay, standing tall between the two men who encompassed the only world that mattered to him, invincible as long as they were there by his side.

But he had grown tired. He would always love his boys; they were a part of him now, attached to his bleeding heart as long as he survived. They were the only ones who truly understood him, who dared to ignore the people calling him crazy and who were brave enough to crack down the tough exterior he’d molded for himself. And that was how they knew he couldn’t take it anymore.

The company had been kinder to them, offering his boys title shot after title shot and plenty of exceptional matches to spare. But when the offerings were passed down to Dean, he was given nothing but useless scraps; segments that had people in the corridors whispering about how crazy he would always be, lines that made him sound like a joke, actions that humiliated and angered him.

He couldn’t bear to look into his boys’ eyes anymore and see the disappointment there; even though it may have only been for the company that offered him nothing, he always felt like that disappointment was meant for him.

Disappointment that he wasn’t doing better, that he wasn’t standing in between them with a title in his hands and a grin on his lips and the sound of cheers roaring in his ears. Disappointment that they were two beautiful men in a relationship being dragged down by plain old Dean Ambrose.

They suggested he got out while he still could, so he wouldn’t be growing old on television humiliating himself. As time passed and the segments he was forced to appear in grew only more and more demeaning, he took their advice and quit, finding a silver lining in the fact that his contract was due to expire in a few months anyway.

He stood in the ring on the last night he would ever be side by side with his boys, telling the crowd about all they’d done, about all _he’d _done. About how there would never be another group like the Shield, about how there would never be anyone else like Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns.

Never, never ever, because no one else could make him feel that deeply; no one else could change his world so thoroughly that Dean wondered where the past had gone.

Standing in the ring with his eyes burning and his heart aching, Dean said his goodbyes. He pretended not to feel the tears brimming at the edge of his vision as Roman and then Seth kissed his forehead; all they could do to show how much they would miss him while millions of people around the world watched.

It was the end of an era, and for him, the end of a life.

He didn’t know what would happen next.


End file.
